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After spending countless hours trying to get my wifi module to work only to fail, I've decided I might as well get an Arduino with built-in wifi.

Would I be able to send HTTP requests (GET, POST etc) straight out of the box or would I have to configure and connect some additional components/modules to the board?

Also, I plan on connecting a thermistor and a GPS module to the Arduino. When the thermistor reaches a certain level, it sends the GPS coordinates of my server. Is this possible in terms of practicality and voltage? And would I be able to write a sketch using the Arduino board or would I have to switch the board to something like 'Generic ESP8266 Module' (something we have to do if we want to program the ESP8266 using the Arduino IDE).

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  • Never buy the Arduino Yun. The wifi/linux part runs OpenWRT, and you can do a lot with that. OpenWRT is awesome. If you are familiar with linux, then OpenWRT is no problem for you. The Arduino part is just like an Arduino Leonardo. The problem is the serial communication between those two via the 'Bridge'. It causes a lot of troubles. Therefor my advice is to never buy an Arduino Yun. Don't buy it. Just don't. You can stay Arduino compatible with a nodemcu or go for linux with the Raspberry Pi.
    – Jot
    Sep 28, 2017 at 21:11
  • just use a dirt-cheap ESP8266/32 devboard instead of forking over a fortune for an undesirable MCU. you need to choose your board type in the IDE no matter what. if you started with a non-devboard, like an 01, you messed up, but don't allow that to poison the well. try a relatively fool-proof nodeMCU before going down the esoteric route...
    – dandavis
    Sep 28, 2017 at 21:27

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Looking at your other two questions as well I see you have had limited success with a ESP8266. I have never used a Yun, but I haven't seen much good stuff about them on here. If you want a Linux based none real time system then you may as well get a PI.

Most people seem to think the way to use an ESP8266 is to hook it up to an Arduino and use it as a 'serial over wifi' link. You can do that, but its like owning a Porsche and Kia and always using the Kia on Motorway journeys. The ESP8266 is an 80MHz chip with 0.5 MByte of RAM, and you could program it in just the same way as an Arduino if you download the board support package. It does have only 10 Digital pins and 1 Analog (which I think has lower resolution that the Arduino), but that's where the Arduino comes in. If you need to hook up lots of pins, then stick the Arduino on the I2C bus as a slave to the ESP.

Now I suspect you have an ESP-01 board and are wondering what the [heck] I am talking about, 10 pins. The number '01' is the number of GPIO pins that are taken to the edge of the board, so really you want to look at ESP-12E or ESP-13E boards (they still cost about the same $1). You might want to look at a Wemos D1 or a Node MCU. Both are fully fledge dev boards, jus plug in the USB and away you go.

So to answer your question:

Get a Wemos D1, hook the hardware up like you wood the Arduino (thermistor and GPS - via SoftwareSerial) and then either code a web server to run on the Wemos or Get it to Post message to you favourite server (see examples for details of either approach)

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  • This is exactly what I want. I guess the way I thought the interaction works between the esp8266 and arduino was wrong. Thanks for clearing the space. I'll order a nodemcu and hopefully it'll end all my trouble! I've got this GPS receiver: amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B015R62YHI/…, would this be compatible with the nodemcu?
    – dfqupwndguerrillamailde
    Sep 29, 2017 at 12:14
  • If you thought it was going to be compatible with an Arduino then yes it should be. You need to remember that the ESPs are 3.3v chips. In theory they should accept up to 6V on their digital pins before smoking, but they still only put out 3.3v which might not be enough for you GPS. So you might want to spend an extra $0.1 on a level convertor.
    – Code Gorilla
    Sep 29, 2017 at 13:24

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